What are metallic alloys? Hey Engineering Lovers, almost every material we could ever want is hidden somewhere on the planet beneath our feet. From the gold we wear in jewelry to the oil that fuels our cars, Earth's storehouse of incredible materials can meet virtually every need.
There are around 90 natural elements and most of them are metals. But as useful as metals are, sometimes they're less than perfect for the jobs we need them to do. Take iron, for example.
It is incredibly strong, but can be quite brittle and rusts easily in humid air. Or perhaps we can talk about aluminum, where it is very light, but in its pure form, it is too soft and weak to be used in some items. This is why most of the "metals" we use are not actually metals but rather alloys, which are metals combined with other substances to make them stronger, harder, lighter, or better in some other way.
Alloys are everywhere around us from the fillings in our teeth, alloy wheels on our cars to the space satellites above our heads. So come on, what is a metal alloy? And to talk about leagues, I'm going to talk about this shirt here, Insider's tech T shirt, which will be the perfect league between your everyday needs, comfort and convenience.
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You may see the word alloy described as a "mixture of metals", but this is a bit misleading because some alloys contain only one metal and it is mixed with other substances that are non-metals. For example, cast iron is an alloy made from just one metal, which is iron, mixed with a non-metal, which is carbon. The best way to think of an alloy is as a material that is made of at least two different chemical elements, one of which is a metal.
The most important metallic component of an alloy, generally representing 90 percent or more of the material, is called the parent metal, parent metal, or base metal. The other components of an alloy, which are called alloying agents, can be metals or nonmetals and are present in much smaller quantities, sometimes less than 1 percent of the total. Although an alloy can sometimes be a compound, it is usually a solid solution.
If you look at a metal through a powerful electron microscope, you can see the atoms inside it arranged in a regular structure called a crystal lattice. Imagine a small box full of marbles and that's basically what you would see. In an alloy, in addition to the atoms of the main metal, there are also atoms of the alloying agents spread throughout the structure.
If atoms of the alloying agent replace atoms of the main metal, we obtain what is called a substitution alloy. An alloy like this will form only if the atoms of the base metal and those of the alloying agent are of approximately similar size and the constituent elements are very close to each other in the periodic table. Brass, for example, is a copper-based replacement alloy in which zinc atoms replace 10 to 35 percent of the atoms that would normally be in copper.
Brass works as an alloy because copper and zinc are close to each other in the periodic table and have atoms of approximately similar size. Alloys can also form if the alloying agent or agents have atoms much smaller than those of the parent metal. In this case, the atoms of the agent slide between the atoms of the main metal, giving what is called an interstitial alloy.
Steel is an example of an interstitial alloy in which a relatively small number of carbon atoms slip into the gaps between the huge atoms in an iron crystal lattice. But why do we need these metal alloys? People make and use alloys because metals don't have exactly the right properties for a specific job.
Iron is a great building material, but steel is stronger, harder and rustproof when mixed with a little chromium as well. Aluminum is a very light metal, but it is also very soft in its pure form. Add small amounts of the metals magnesium, manganese and copper and you make an excellent aluminum alloy called duralumin, which is strong enough to make airplanes.
Alloys always show improvements over the main metal in one or more of its important physical properties, such as strength, durability, ability to conduct electricity, ability to withstand heat, and so on. Generally, alloys are stronger and harder than their main metals, and end up being less malleable and less ductile. And how are alloys made?
You may find the idea of an alloy as a "mixture of metals" quite confusing. How can you mix two pieces of solid metal? The traditional way of making alloys was to heat and melt the components into liquids, mix them, and then let them cool into what is called a solid solution.
An alternative way to make an alloy is to turn the components into powder, mix them, and then fuse them with a combination of high pressure and high temperature. This technique is called powder metallurgy. A third method of making alloys is to fire beams of ions, with atoms with few or many electrons, into the surface layer of a piece of metal.
Ion implantation, as it is known, is a very precise way of making an alloy and is probably best known as one of the ways of making the semiconductors used in electronic circuits and computer chips. So you can see that a metallic alloy goes far beyond the steel we use in construction. If you've come this far and liked the video, take the opportunity to subscribe, if you're not already subscribed, leave your like and turn on the notification bell.
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Have you ever imagined mixing various molten metals in a large furnace? Anyone who works there or has worked in a steel factory, your comment will be very welcome here. Here you have two interesting video options that you need to watch to expand your knowledge and explore your curiosity.
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